


Thaw

by Avenging_is_My_Day_Job



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Meeting, Gen, Steve POV, Steve Rogers in the ice, Tony POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 13:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12508476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avenging_is_My_Day_Job/pseuds/Avenging_is_My_Day_Job
Summary: After decades of fruitless searching, the wreckage from the Valkyrie is found in the Arctic. Of course Tony expects there to be a body, once he sees that most of the plane is still intact, but he doesn't expect the body to still be intact.Or...still breathing, for that matter.





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> I hated this when I finished it. It's been a few months so I reread it and decided to go ahead and post it. I may write a newer version at some point, though.

He considers, just for a moment, not going.

Resources had been pooled together for decades on these expeditions. Time _wasted_.

He got the call at two thirty in the morning anyway, and contemplated putting it off at least for a few hours. The wreckage would still be there later in the day, and no doubt the ice would be too.

Finally, after nearly falling asleep again, he realized it would be best to just get it over with. He'd lost interest in the whole subject many years before, but it wasn't about spiting his old man anymore. There were real results this time. A part of him really wanted to pay respects to this piece of history.

He was on a plane by four, bound for the Arctic Circle.

* * *

For two decades nearly, since taking over his father's company, Tony Stark had also undertaken his expeditions to find Captain America. That is to say, of course, he never gave them the red light. A separate account had been set up many years before to draw funding from when a new expedition was launched, and received a steady trickle of money that had been carefully budgeted. Obviously, Tony had never been particularly attached to the purpose, but kept it going anyway because it was the right thing to do.

These things almost always produced results, even if they weren't the ones anyone was aiming for. Stark Industries had uncovered fossils, shipwrecks, 'lost treasure' per se, and had made plenty of valued contributions to museums over the years. By now, Tony figured that the wreckage they were searching for was gone for all intents and purposes. Broken apart on impact, drifted around in the unforgiving ocean currents and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

They never new the coordinates of the initial impact, so of course drifting was a very real concern. They were lucky in this case.

Here he stood, bundled up in layers of winter clothing, standing on top of a glacier surrounded by people he didn't know. Personally, anyway. They all technically worked for him. There was a base camp turned compound set up nearby, on solid ground, and the wreckage of the infamous Valkyrie under his feet.

The Hydra-built aircraft that Captain America valiantly plunged into the ocean to spare the world destruction. A recent storm had shifted snow and ice around leading to a part of the ship's hull being uncovered and thus discovered. It had held up surprisingly well, from what he can see.

There was large equipment stationed around the wreckage, clearing away debris and securing the plane to raise it out of the ice. Tony stood off to the side, watching the bustle of the work crew and tried to ignore the excitement buzzing around.

Eventually, a crewman approached him with a light and offered to take him down through one of the plane's hatches to have a look around. He obliged, if only to assuage his curiosity about the advancements that Hydra was able to make using tesseract energy. He climbed down the ladder one handed, since the other was gripping the flashlight, and skipped the last step bar in favor of simply hopping down - and promptly falling on his ass.

The light skittered to the floor and when he found his footing again he picked it up and shined it around, realizing that there was ice covering a large portion of the nose of the plane and frost coating literally everything else.

The crew that were already inside the plane didn't seem to notice he had fallen, and were nose deep in chipping away at a huge chunk of ice by the broken control panel. While they were busy with that, he meandered around the parts of the plane that hadn't been roped off, getting a good look at everything before it was disassembled at moved to SHIELD. After making a few thorough rounds, he returned to the cockpit and approached the crew curiously.

"That what Davies was rambling on about at two o'clock this morning?" he asked, looking down at it. There's definitely something in the ice, but in this light, it's hard to tell what. They were trying to wedge lift straps underneath it.

"A body," one of them said. "Had to turn of the lamps cause they were starting to melt the ice."

Right, and the heat would damage any viable tissue actually left on the body.

"Is it him?"

"Think so," another one said, gesturing to another chunk of ice that had been chipped at and removed from the larger one. He walked over to it and shined the light on it, and hints of red and blue reflected back at him. A shield.

 _The_ shield.

* * *

Tony returned to the states later that day on the cargo plane that was carrying the remains. He sat on a bench across from the refrigerated glass coffin, with the thawed shield sitting at his feet. There was little for the technicians to do here, so he was mostly alone. For the several hours-long trip back to New York, he alternated between updating Pepper, trying to deal with SI business over the phone, and trying to make out any distinctive features on the face within the ice.

It's no use though, so he just went back to conversing with Pepper and complaining about how cold it was and how badly they needed to go on vacation. Somewhere warm, like the Bahamas.

* * *

When the plane touched down, everything was immediately transported to the labs at the Triskellion in DC, where Tony was graciously invited to oversee the project since it technically was his anyway. As was the money. And the shield, which he's strongly considering keeping, since he doesn't trust them with it.

The shield was a story in and of itself, of course. It bore it's own scars, such as the chipped paint that was singed black where bullets had struck the vibranium. The leather straps on the inner side of it were worn down and frayed, slightly misshapen from being gripped so tightly in battle. The leather is cracked with age, and stained by moisture, and the clasps that attach them to the shield are rusted since they weren't made of the same metal.

A few hours after the arrival he wandered back to the lab to look at the progress. When he came through the door, there were a few wet floor signs scattered around the room, and a large portion of the ice had melted away, pooled on the floor at the technicians' feet. He approached the table where they were working, standing between heat lamps.

"Sir," Jarvis said quietly, through the earpiece he was wearing, "I am detecting vital signs."

Tony manoeuvred around one of the technicians and pressed two fingers under the Captain's jawline, momentarily convinced that his AI was somehow malfunctioning when he felt it. Faint and practically not there, this man had a pulse.

"Get some medics down here," he said, rearranging the lamps to face what was left of this. 

"Mister Stark..."

"He's still alive," Tony snapped, "Where the _fuck_ are the medics?"

One of the technicians scrambled away to the phone and the others started chipping away at the rest of the ice like mad. The ice was rapidly shrinking at that point under the combined efforts of the excess heat and the techs, and finally they were able to cut away pieces of the uniform to free the Captain completely.

He stepped aside when the medics finally arrived - and shit, why did it take them so long? Isn't SHIELD supposed to be efficient?

They cut away the rest of the uniform and moved him from the metal table onto a gurney, strapping him under a thermal blanket before pressing an oxygen mask over his face to force him to breathe. Tony watched helplessly (curiously?) as Captain America was wheeled out, alive.

* * *

Alive and well was the question. Last he saw, Rogers wasn't even breathing. Last he heard, there was a load of complications. Tony wasn't permitted to enter the medical wing, so everything he heard was second hand, but he was at least ninety five percent sure they had to use a defibrillator at one point. The thought that sixty five years had passed with this kid still alive in the ice, only to die on the table was nothing short of awful.

Finally, he was ushered away by a shield agent.

"Just let them do their job," Pepper told him, "You don't have to be there."

* * *

_Coming to was one of the most painful things he'd experience by far, but he wasn't sure why. Then it occured to him... he remembered The Valkyrie. The radio cutting out and crashing into the ice and -_

_Suddenly the pain he felt was very real._

_His eyes won't open and his limbs feel weighed down, like lead, or maybe they're numb. He couldn't tell after so long not being able to move. How long has it been...? Sounds were trying to get through it, but they can't and as he struggles - against what he wasn't sure, the pressure holding him down that wasn't really there - he felt a touch on his arm and he instantly felt grounded._

_He was still stuck, but he knew that there was someone else there with him. He could breathe, which he only realized after the whole episode was waning. He was taking deep breathes that hurt like they haven't hurt since before the serum, and for a minute he thought that maybe he dreamt the whole thing up and started to panic again. The grip on his upper arm tightened a little, and it all waned again, leaving him a little shaky before he finally just gave in._

_There was no darkness to succumb to, because he'd never opened his eyes to the light in the first place._

_When he woke up again - he assumed he did anyway, he wasn't sure what that felt like anymore - the process repeated. It took him a few long moments to realize that he wasn't being gradually submerged in icy water, that it wasn't hardening around him and pinning him to the floor. The tremors didn't recede when he concluded that, so it was only a small comfort._

_He's stuck like that for a little while longer, hoping that the next breath hurts less and his muscles don't protest every time he tries to move or twitches involuntarily. Finally, the sounds aren't so muffled - they're still quiet, like trying to listen through cotton balls or a pillow, but it's not unintelligible garble anymore. He could feel the ventilator tube in his throat, which was an unwelcome feeling and he thought that maybe the crash did more damage than he thought._

_"....Hear me yet?"_

_He does his best to nod, a little twitch of his head that sent a wave of pain shooting down his neck. The hand was back, pressing down on his arm and he realized he might have flailed a bit. He wondered if it was the first time._

_"We found you, Cap. You're safe now."_

_Finally, he can open his eyes. The lights above him were too bright, but he manages, because he could hear now and he's not stupid enough to put all of his trust into a complete stranger. Not during wartime, not when the people who found him could be Hydra, or the Axis..._

_He must have blacked out at some point, because when he opened his eyes again, the tube was gone and a nurse was shuffling out with a rolling cart in front of her. The owner of the voice returned, chatting away indifferently._

_He turned his head enough to look at the owner of the voice, finding a familiar face and he relaxed a little._

_"Howard," he croaked, almost hyper aware of the flinch that the man gave when he registered Steve's quiet voice._

_"...Sorry, Cap, I'm not Howard," the man said, "My name is Tony Stark."_

_Steve's vision clears as his eyes adjust to the light and dread settles in the pit of his stomach. This man... Tony, looks so much like Howard, but he looks so weathered and tired. Old, almost, though he wouldn't say that out loud. At first he assumed it had been a few days at most since the crash, but this means it had to have been years._

_The panic returns and he's not sure if he checked out or they sedated him, all he knows is when he wakes up again, he's in a staged room and the game on the radio is one that he went to, when he and Bucky scraped up enough money for tickets._

_Everything after that is a mess and he wished they never got him out of that plane._


End file.
